Bloggers, webmasters, online journalists and anyone else who publishes regularly on the Internet can now get free subscriptions to Britannica Online (http://www.britannica.com/).Anyone interested in participating in Britannica's new WebShare initiative can apply for a free subscription at http://signup.eb.com/ or get more information at http://britannicanet.com/.
The free subscriptions are part of Britannica's effort to increase awareness and use of its extensive information resources, which include articles written by many top scholars, some of them Nobel laureates.
"It's good business for us and a benefit to people who publish on the Net," said Britannica president Jorge Cauz. "The level of professionalism among Web publishers has really improved, and we want to recognize that by giving access to the people who are shaping the conversations about the issues of the day. Britannica belongs in the middle of those conversations."
In addition to the free subscriptions, Web publishers can also bring the value of Britannica's content to their own sites by linking to any articles they find relevant to the topics they are writing about.
Access to much of the site, including full-text entries from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, normally requires a paid subscription. There's an exception to that rule, however: When a Web site links to a Britannica article Web surfers who click on that link get the article in its entirety.
"This means that when you are writing something for the Web, whether it's about Tibet, the U.S. presidential election, global warming or the Peace of Westphalia, you can give your readers additional information about the topic just by pointing them to the appropriate Britannica articles," said Cauz. "If an article normally requires a subscription to access it, your readers will get it anyway, even if they are not subscribers.
"Bloggers, journalists, and Web sites link all the time, of course, but they may not realize they have the option of pointing to Britannica articles. So let me be clear: they do."
Cauz said that Web publishers can link to as many Britannica articles as they like.
The company also plans to provide special tools, such as widgets and clusters of topical articles related to current events that will make it easy for online publishers to find and use Britannica material on their sites.
The public is also invited to follow Britannica's Twitter stream, a daily "tweet" featuring a link to a Britannica article pertinent to the news of the day. This feature, at http://twitter.com/EBWebshare, requires a free account.
Additional features designed to facilitate the use of Britannica content around the Web will be introduced in the months ahead.
Interested writers and publishers can go to http://britannicanet.com/ for more. The site has instructions, a registration form, currently available topic clusters, eligibility guidelines, and a Britannica-written blog to keep visitors up to date on the program and how it is being used. The social media version of this release is available at http://britannicanet.com/?page_id=34.
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